


A Taste for Kindness

by rhodrymavelyne



Series: More Than a Jinrou [18]
Category: Shiki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:15:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Tatsumi drags Shinma Shigure-sensei to Sunako and Seishin-sensei to share what he’s revealed, but they’ve already had a revelation. This stirs up memories in Tatsumi and a lot of rage.
Relationships: Kirishiki Sunako/Tatsumi, Kirishiki Sunako/Yasumori Nao, Tatsumi/Muroi Seishin, Tatsumi/Yuuki Natsuno
Series: More Than a Jinrou [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/473263
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	A Taste for Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> This is the 18th part of my multi-part story, More Than a Jinrou. It’s the sequel to After the Explosion, which showed that Natsuno and Tatsumi both survived the pit…and what Natsuno does and discovers afterwards. I don’t own Shiki, but for its characters and their world do take over my imagination from time to time.

Tatsumi burst into the room, half shoving Shinma Shigure-sensei through the doorway. He favored everyone with his most sharkish grin. “Look what I caught!”

His smile crumpled around the edges at the expressions upon Sunako and Seishin-sensei’s faces. It was at that exact moment he caught the scent. Or more like the scent caught him. 

*Tats-chan.* It breathed in a mocking, musty voice which tickled the inside of his nose, a parody of the first boy he ever took too seriously. It crawled into his nostrils, all four ears with the odor of dust, roses wilting on the vine, and metallic rust. 

“Just what was that?” Tatsumi demanded, staring at the way Sunako’s thin shoulders drooped, the way Seishin’s slender hands trembled. “Who was here?” 

“Hello, Shinma-sensei.” Sunako gazed at the mortal half swooning, supported by Tatsumi’s arm. “Your vampire master was just here. He was telling us how he used you to bring out Yuuki Natsuno’s potential.”

The human lifted his head to offer the vampire child a smirk. “You must be Sunako-chan. You looked every bit as delectable as he said you tasted years ago.” 

Tatsumi slammed the mortal against the wall, feeling as if he was the one being knocked off his fee by the wave of memories crashing down upon him. He couldn’t look at Sunako. He could even’t see Shinma Shigure. All he saw was the past, reflected on the mortal toy’s eyeballs, shining in each tooth of his grin. 

***

He hadn’t been a jinrou. Just another drunk mortal, stumbling home in the middle of the night. The wholesome, upstanding businessman he’d left had been equally drunk. He never would have worked up the nerve to touch Tatsumi if he hadn’t been drunk. In the morning, he would deny the whole thing. Tatsumi had decided to skip that scene. Yes, it was the same play again and again. Tatsumi kept accepting a role in it, even though he shouldn’t. He’d meet a guy, an incredibly attractive, friendly guy, prone to touching him at first in an innocent way. Things would escalate. Once the friendly guy blew or banged him, he turned cold. 

Over and over the script was the same, more of the same. Maybe Tatsumi should rewrite the script. Maybe he should pounce on some cold guy, drag him off. Maybe he could warm the guy up or the coldness would be just a pretense, hiding a tender heart. Right.

Tatsumi started to laugh at his own stupid, romantic notion. What came out was a choked sob. 

Only he wasn’t the one who’d made the sound. It had been more high-pitched, feminine, girlish. A child crying. 

This was when Tatsumi saw her, crumpled on the side on the road. A little girl with hair the color of a twilight storm, almost too thick and wild for the lavender ribbon trying to restrain it. Her thin shoulders seemed too fragile for the force of misery which shook her tiny body encased in the flimsy armour of her ruffled dress. 

“Are you all right?” Tatsumi approached the child, drawn by her misery. It was as if a kindred soul was drawing him, hidden within the small body concealing herself in ruffles. “Can I help?”

The girl raised her tear-streaked face. Never had Tatsumi seen eyes like hers, pitch-black as a moonless night. Hungry, absorbing all life, light, and color within their dark depths. “Maybe you can.”

The child sprang at him as if she was a tiger or a cat. She opened her mouth, revealing tiny fangs. 

Tatsumi was too shocked to get out of the way before those teeth pierced his throat. 

***

He’d never believed a man could love his murderer. Not before he’d met Sunako. Not until he’d felt her fierce will to survive, battling the entrophic force which invaded her small form, the melancholy thoughtfulness, the need for some philosophy to guide her while driven by her hunger, her emptiness. 

Tatsumi found himself remembering that moment again when he found Sunako crying again. They hadn’t been long in Sotoba; the Kirishiki family. They were only just beginning to get a taste for village life, if Tatsumi would pardon himself the pun. Moving to a spot surrounded by death, making it the eden of the undead was Sunako’s dream. 

“Are you all right?” Tatsumi approached the girl who’d become everything; killer, companion, reason for existing. Unthinking, he echoed his long-ago mortal self. “Can I help?” 

“You said that when we first met.” Sunako wiped her eyes. She managed a tiny smile, turning to him. “Until I bit you. I tasted your thoughts. ‘Great. Vampires exist, only do I get bitten by Lestat, Louis, or Armand? No, I get Claudia.’ ”

“I was stupid. I underrated Claudia. Even her enemies raved about her beauty. What's more, she was smart.” Tatsumi shrugged, managed a smile. “What else can you expect from me? I was just plain stupid. Stupid and drunk.”

“Don’t forget kind. You were very kind to stop and ask me those things, even if you were drunk.” Sunako twisted her small mouth, losing her smile. “She was kind, too.”

“Your recent victim?” Tatsumi guessed. Sunako had a taste for kindness. It warmed the cold emptiness within the child vampire, soothing the pain which never abandoned her. 

“Nao-san. She’s so pretty, so happy. She has a handsome husband, a cute child. Chizuru picked her out for me, led me to her house.” Sunako wiped her eyes. “I just wanted to taste her, to taste some of her happiness, but I couldn’t stop.”

“Can anybody?” Tatsumi smiled, trying to keep the bitterness from twisting his own mouth. “You have to eat. You have to survive. What choice do you have?” 

“I’ve said the same thing to you and others.” Sunako looked down at her hand. “The light is dying in Nao’s eyes just as it once died in yours.”

“I’m glad it was you.” Tatsumi knelt so he could look his little vampire mistress face to face. “If Nao has any sense, she’ll be glad, too. She’ll rise and be glad.” 

“And I’ll have her forever as part of my family.” Sunako’s entire face softened, giving her the freshness of youth frozen in her form. “Thank you, Tatsumi.”

***  
Tatsumi blinked back those images, swirling with a hot anger in his memories. It turned out Nao hadn’t had much in the way of sense. She became obsessed with her mortal family, attacking each member to get them to rise, drawing far too much attention. She’d been bold enough to attack her mother-in-law in the Ozaki clinic before she thought of asking for back-up. Nor had she ever been happy. Not to have been chosen by Sunako, nor to have risen. 

Sunako carried the pain of her failures, her rejections, her losses. Sotoba had only been the latest. 

This vampire of Shinma Shigure’s had been the mastermind of her misery along with Natsuno’s. 

“I wonder if you aren’t two of a kind, you and your master.” Tatsumi gave the human an angry shake. “You seem to enjoy crushing innocence before it has a chance to bloom.”

“No, it’s Natsuno and my master whom are two of a kind.” Bloodied and battered, Shinma Shigure still managed a weak wiggle and an equally weak leer. “Incubi stick together, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> And here it is, the revelation about Natsuno in part. One of you was right in your guesses, you know who. :) The other...that was a great idea about being psychic. I hope you're not too disappointed. 
> 
> Yes, I've come up with my own version of how Sunako and Tatsumi met for this story, based on Sunako's own tale about her past. She admitted to attacking kind people, so I guessed she developed a taste for kind people as a vampire.
> 
> The references to Lestat, Louis, Armand, and Claudia are to the characters from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Lestat and Louis are both extremely attractive, young-looking male vampires. Armand appears to be a beautiful youth, although he's centuries old. Claudia was a vampire child, often compared to a doll, although she was a lot older than she looked. And yes, she was very smart.


End file.
